The Legal Aspects of Athletics. By Andrew Grieve.

Authors

William M. McKenzie Jr.

Library of Congress Authority File

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79122466

Document Type

Book Review

Abstract

During the past decade, there has been a phenomenal increase in the popularity and profitability of professional athletics of all types. The invasion of television into various sports has popularized athletics and individual athletes with the general public to an extent previously limited to the devoted fan. The sale of broadcast rights has supported professional baseball for years; it has financed the bidding between the two football leagues for top players prior to their merger; and it explains in part the expansion of hockey and basketball into those population centers necessary to create the nationwide, yet locally oriented, audience in the large metropolitan areas which are demanded by the sponsor before he will commit his advertising dollar. Even in those sports where limited numbers of spectators watch the event in relative discomfort, the revenues to be had from television have made it feasible to establish professionalism when it had not overtly existed before. The sale of television rights to college and other amateur athletic events is becoming more prevalent, creating a spectator availability for sports hitherto unknown to a majority of its potential fans. Together with this increased interest in, and expansion of, professional athletics, much has been written about the emerging business acumen of the amateur athlete as he turns professional, or about the professional athlete’s emerging prominence in the business world. The Legal Aspects of Athletics, despite its title and its timing, is about none of this. Mr. Grieve, the author, has written about the problems and legal liabilities inherent in the development and day-to-day operation of an amateur athletic program. He has apparently spent most of his life directly associated with athletic programs of various schools, and at varying levels, as a teacher-coach, coach athletic director or in some related capacity. Mr. Griece is not a lawyer. He does, however, have an organized grasp of the problems facing an athletic program administrator, an ability to communicate some of these problems and the pitfalls surrounding them, and a more than nodding familiarity with the areas of legal liability…

Recommended Citation

William M. McKenzie Jr., The Legal Aspects of Athletics. By Andrew Grieve., 7 San Diego L. Rev. 361 (1970).
Available at: https://digital.sandiego.edu/sdlr/vol7/iss2/14